bcf 2008

The Borneo Cultural Festival is held annually in Sibu and showcases our ethnic diversity. BCF 2008 has three themed areas – the Chinese, the Malay/Melanau and the Iban/Dayak cultural areas. This post is focusing on the Borneo Chinese Cultural Festival (BCCF) and the opening ceremony. I will visit on other nights to do the other writeups.

The Borneo Cultural Festival (BCF) 2008 opened up with a fireworks display. It lasted for a good 15 minutes and kicked off the festivities.

The highlight of BCF is always the food stalls.

The BCCF has ethnic food stalls operated by the respective clans.

The food stalls features the respective delicacies of the ethnicity of the clan. This is the Hainan clan, which is not very big in Sibu, which is predominantly Foochow.

The Hainan, who are known for their Hainan Chicken Rice, is also offering one of their other specialties – BBQ pork.

They also have a traditional dish which I can’t remember the name of consisting of a starchy blend of meat and mushrooms.

You can actually eat your way through BCF 2008 without paying a single cent from the free samples of food, but that wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do. ;)

The Foochow Association was well represented at BCF 2008. This is Mary posing in front of it. She’s Foochow, although I can speak the dialect better than her. :)

There are makeshift seating arrangements on the footpath and inside certain stalls for people to enjoy their food on the spot.

There is a traditional Chinese group playing erhu and other classic Chinese musical instruments as part of the program.

Thus, naturally… ;) What did you expect, you’re on sixthseal.com. :)

The Teochew group also made their presence felt at the Borneo Cultural Festival.

This is their portfolio of delicacies…

…and their pork offerings, which is rather impressive.

This is a variant of meat dumplings wrapped in square leaves instead of the triangular shape.

We compared the Hakka version (previous) to the Henghua version (above).

There was a traditional Chinese opera going on at the Chinese Cultural Festival.

I shot a video of it, it’s pretty good and surprisingly entertaining for a dying art.

I would be remiss if I didn’t take a photo at the Heng Hua booth, being a Heng Hua and all. Heng Hua Pride! =D

We stumbled upon a stall where we could enjoy our food within a booth. It serves alcohol which is always a plus point. RM 12 for three (3) cans of beer.

I was immediately asked to drink by the promoter. The beer kept flowing for free after that thanks to one of the kind association members.

The beer was poured into an authentic Chinese pitcher and then to bowls instead of cups for The Real China Experience.

I didn’t even remember how much I drank, have to ask Mary for the figures. ;)

This is the comparison between the Hakka dumplings (RM 6) and the Heng Hua dumplings (RM 6.50).

The Hakka dumplings were wrapped in brown leaves and is completely white. There’s no soy sauce in the glutenous rice, which is different from what we always get. It contains pork, mushrooms and peanuts.

The Heng Hua dumplings are the ones that I’m used to eating. It’s dark from soy sauce and contains more generous and juicier chunks of pork, mushrooms and peanuts. We all concluded that the Heng Hua one tastes better, and I assure you, I didn’t skew the results due to being of Heng Hua ethnicity. ;)

The amber fluid floweth throughout the night…

…and floweth

…and floweth

…and it seems like the cup (or bowl) almost overfloweth.

I think it was the rowdiest booth in the whole of BCF 2008.

Thanks to the association for giving us a good time (and free beer). ;)